You didn’t think that just because January is over, I’ve stopped finishing, did you? 😉
I have two finishes today and will have two more finishes when I feel like cutting the mat board and working on them. I’ve picked out the backing fabrics for both pieces, at least.

At any rate, here are the two entries that I stitched for Anna‘s challenge back in August 2009. I made them into a pillow. I thought I was pretty clever about the seam, since the sides were two radically different colors. I backstitched each side with a color that matched the fabric and then whipstitched them together with invisible thread. It was a pain working with the nylon stuff, but I think that the result was worth it, even if you can see it in the pictures.

The design is a freebie – Swirlygig by Bent Creek. Click on the link to Anna’s challenge to find the link to the design because, frankly, I’m too lazy to go back and look it up. 😛

My second finish is the old castle that I stitched when I was very young. I have no idea where the design came from or anything else. Just that it was filthy (I had to wash it), has a corner cut out of the fabric and that the colors are bright and obnoxious. But I wasn’t about to throw it away. I found a pre-made frame at Michaels, but the cut of the mat didn’t quite work for the piece, so I cut my own. My first mat! Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be impressed with. 😆

Speaking of Michaels, I stopped on Thursday night and my round robin wasn’t ready, but I got a call yesterday saying that everything was ready to be picked up, so I’ll need to drive out there at some point in the near future. I try to pick things up when my favorite framer (Kathy) is there because she likes to see the unveilings of finished framing jobs. We had our college diplomas framed, as well. It will be nice to have them out of the closet and hanging up in our office after 13 years!

That’s it for now. I have 3 new starts lined up, so I should go do some stitching. Poor me. 😉

My Not-So-Crazy January Challenge of 2011 is to take 15 finishes from your waiting-to-be-finished pile and finish-finish them. They can be framed, made into ornaments, sewn into bellpulls, hand-stitched into biscornus, whatever strikes your fancy. My goal is to clear out that finishing pile in which some pieces have been languishing for years. If you choose to frame any pieces, you can either complete the framing yourself by the end of January or take them into a framer by the end of January, your choice and either one counts.

I totally knocked this challenge out of the park! I started by finishing more than 15 pieces in less than 15 days. I originally pulled 26 pieces out of my waiting-to-be-finished pile and I have finished all of them. In addition, I had two pieces that I had finished stitching at the end of the year which I added to the mix. I then pulled another piece out of the waiting-to-be-finished pile, found one hiding in the basket near my stitching chair and decided to add cording to Phoebe’s old stocking, which has now been repurposed into a generic dog stocking.

That’s 31 finishes total. One for each day of the month. I cannot tell you how ecstatic I am to have not only cleared out a significant chunk of my waiting-to-be-finished pile, but to have so many more pieces to display! I have to figure out where to put them, but that’s such a pleasant quandary in which to find myself. I have literally been jumping up and down. Well, more like happy dancing, I guess.

Here is a photo of all of the finishes (minus what I put away and was too lazy to retrieve just for this photo, plus the piece to be framed, etc.):

And here is what’s left of my waiting-to-be-finished pile:

The dusty purple butterfly at the top right can be finished into an ornament at any time; you can even see the paper template next to it. I need to complete a slightly brighter purple butterfly that will meld better with the others and then I will either make them into a bellpull or save up for an expensive framing job. The castle at the lower left is one of my earliest stitched pieces and I actually just purchased a little pre-made frame for it; I just need to cut the mat opening a little larger. The purple purse… I don’t know; maybe it will go to whomever wants it? The Pennsylvania heart is waiting for its companion New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland hearts which will all be made into a wall hanging or framed. The cherry blossom needlebook in the bottom left corner just needs to be finished. So, there are really only 3 remaining pieces waiting to be finished. That, my dear readers, is how I spell success!